Mirror reporter Ian Fyfe was the only British reporter to die on June 6, 1944, so his inscription on the final white stone arch of the magnificent Bayeux Monument is the only one for a journalist

When the editor called across the newsroom for a volunteer to join British troops on a top-secret mission, a young reporter eagerly raised his hand.

Scots-born Ian Fyfe, 25, could guess what was planned and wanted to be the first British journalist into France as Europe was liberated from Nazi occupation. It was a brave ­decision that led to him becoming one of the first casualties of D-Day.

Military contacts won him a seat in a glider sent ahead to land men and equipment of 9th Parachute Battalion under cover of darkness.

But Ian’s glider never made it. It was shot down, probably by a machine-gun battery on the Normandy coast. No wreckage was ever recovered and like so many of the fallen soldiers, neither was Ian’s body.

Yesterday, as the world prepared to to mark the 70th anniversary of D-Day
, the Daily Mirror honoured his memory by placing a wreath at a monument that bears his name.

Ian was the only British reporter to die on June 6, 1944, so his inscription on the final white stone arch of the magnificent Bayeux Monument is the only one for a journalist.

Phil Coburn / Daily Mirror

In May, he had bid farewell to his wife Betty at their home in Croydon, Surrey, not knowing when or if he would return.

His final report before the glider took off told of a final moment of prayer with the Paras.

“The service of dedication was strange, moving – the last before the men parachuted down into enemy territory,” he wrote. “The padre himself… was jumping with them, taking part in an operation that will make them known to the entire world, an operation on which everything depends.

“As you read this, the men of this airborne unit are already in France. For a week I have been living with these men in a sealed camp... waiting to go into France... despite the narrow boundaries of their tented world, morale has never been higher.”

The Airspeed Horsa glider Ian boarded at RAF Harwell in Berks, took off late on June 5, towed by a Halifax bomber until it could float on air currents.

TM

World War II Airspeed Horsa

More than 600 gliders were used in Normandy on the direct order of Winston Churchill because they could carry up to 28 men and drop them with more accuracy than planes.

Also on board glider Chalk 66 were two pilots, an Army driver and an officer, Lt J. S. Robinson. The manifest confirms Ian’s place with the abbreviation “War Corres”. The aircraft, 67ft long with a wingspan of 88ft, also carried a jeep, a trailer, four bicycles, 20 torpedoes, and two metal footbridges.

That night’s mission for 9th Para was to destroy the Merville Gun Battery threatening British landings at Sword Beach eight miles away. The equipment was to support the 600 Paras charged with capturing the guns. In the end only 150 made it to the rendezvous.

Reports suggest Ian was trapped under the jeep in the crash. He is thought to have died immediately or under German fire moments later. The jeep driver, called Fuller, is believed to have escaped and was picked up by British troops. Lt Robinson also survived and was taken prisoner.

Phil Coburn / Daily Mirror

Wreath for Ian Fyfe who was killed during the D-Day landings at Normandy

Back at the Mirror, Ian’s copy was included a dramatic June 7 edition. He told how seven officers were vying to be the first Allied soldier on enemy soil. Had he been luckier, his later reports would have been a historic testimony. But at that point his fate was unknown.

Joining the Mirror in 1938 as a 19-year-old trainee, Ian made friends with fellow cub reporter Donald Zec, who went to become an award-winning showbiz interviewer. Donald, now 95, has fond memories of his pal.

“He was a very good reporter, a very bright chap,” he recalls. “I admired him – he had a lot of guts. His death was a great tragedy but he would have enjoyed the adventure and been very enthusiastic. He would have had a great career in Fleet Street if he had lived.”

Ian and Betty, wed only a year, had no children. She remarried and died in the 1990s.

Phil Coburn / Daily Mirror

Mirror journalist Tom Parry lays a wreath in memory of Mirror correspondent Ian Fyfe who was killed during the D-Day landings at Normandy

His name is on another Bayeux memorial to journalists killed on duty since the landings. The Reporters Without Borders garden behind the Bayeux Monument also has an inscription for the Sunday Mirror’s Rupert Hamer, who died in Afghanistan in 2010 –two Mirrormen who gave their lives to bring readers the truth about two very different wars.

War reporter Bernard Gray of the Sunday Pictorial, which in 1963 became the Sunday Mirror, was the only Second World War journalist to die in a British submarine. He was on HMS Urge sailing from Malta to Egypt in May 1942 when it was bombed by enemy planes.